


Tidal Forces

by ladymac111



Series: Interstellar Medium [7]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Astrophysics, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Pillow Talk, Post-Canon, the nerdiest pillow talk you've ever heard i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 03:57:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10868586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymac111/pseuds/ladymac111
Summary: Hunk and Pidge have a chat about theoretical astrophysics while they enjoy the afterglow of lovemaking.





	Tidal Forces

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this art](https://hidgeweek.tumblr.com/post/160499225586/a-weekend-in-the-cabin) (slightly NSFW) that Sushi streamed because it's absolutely lovely and I want to live in it.
> 
> Takes place at some point years in the future after they've saved the universe and come home from being Voltron.

"What are you thinking about?"

Hunk laughed, a deep chuckle that rumbled through his body, shaking Pidge where she lay on top of him. "Nothing. Why, what are you thinking about?"

"Hawking radiation."

He laughed again, more energetically, and tried to sit up a little. "Why do I even ask any more."

"Shut up, you like it." She folded her arms on his chest and looked up at him with a grin. "I'm just thinking, in all this time we've never had an opportunity to check out Hawking radiation, see how it really rolls."

"We haven't been off-world much since we got back." He laid his hands on her shoulders, stroking gently.

"I know. And I'm thinking we should put something together, go check out a black hole."

"That's not something that the Alteans worked out?"

"I don't think so, I never came across anything and nobody I talked to understood me. But it could be that theoretical physics was sort of ... lost ten thousand years ago."

"Yeah, that does seem likely. And Coran's an experimentalist like me, he probably doesn't know much theory unless it would help the castle go."

"Yeah, he doesn't, I tried to grill him once years ago. It was just frustrating."

"Why do you care about Hawking radiation?"

She gave him a meaningful look. "Science."

"Hah, no, I mean, what are the implications? Like obviously I know what it is, but what other things in the cosmological body of knowledge would that impact?"

Pidge shrugged, kicking her feet in the air. "I dunno. I'm just interested because I think it's cool. I'm sure people who have focused their careers on it would know what it _means_ in the scheme of things."

"That's fair."

"Would you build me a detector?"

He raised one eyebrow. "A Hawking radiation detector? I'm sure there's something already out there that would work. And, like, have better tolerances than something I would hack together in the garage."

"Yeah, but I'd like it better if _you_ made it."

His heart softened instantly, and he really wanted to kiss her, but he couldn't reach her like they were. He pressed his legs against her hips instead. "I can try. I think the tricky part would be making it tough enough, though."

"How tough does it have to be?"

"If it's going to get close enough to a black hole to be able to distinguish Hawking radiation from whatever other particles, it's going to have to withstand astronomical tidal forces." He paused. "I realized halfway through saying that that it was a pun."

Pidge giggled. "Sure is."

"It may not be super astronomical, though. I'd have to work out the Schwarzschild radius of a black hole just small enough to be interesting, that's where I'd rather you went."

She tipped her head to the side, and a lock of hair fell across her face. "Black hole's a black hole, you've still broken QM even if you only broke it a little."

He really wanted to kiss her again, and something about their posture was going to have to change because he couldn't take not being able to kiss her the next time she said something cute. He pushed on her gently, shifting her over his leg and scooting over so there was room for her beside him. In doing so his knee discovered that the vibrator was still on the mattress, but by then he had pushed it into the crack by the wall. He made a mental note to retrieve it when they got to the cleaning up stage of the afternoon's lovemaking. "So something I don't get," he said as Pidge was settling against his shoulder. "Is why Hawking radiation ... works."

"What do you mean? You know about the model with particle-antiparticle pair creation straddling the event horizon."

"Well, yeah, obviously. But black hole evaporation depends on the antiparticle falling in, and the particle tunneling out, right?"

"I dunno." She ran her hand over his chest. "Probably? I don't know that much about it, honestly. I'll have to find out."

"Okay, but, that's sort of it, right?"

"Yeah, I think so. One model, anyway, there's others that have, like, thermodynamics."

"But how would that work if it's equally as likely that the antiparticle would go out as the particle would?"

"You're asking me questions that I have no idea how to answer."

He sighed. "I know. Sorry."

"No, no, it's good." She leaned in and kissed him gently. "I like questions that I don't know how to answer."

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her more deeply; they both smelled like sex and it was lovely. "Because you're going to figure out how to answer them?"

"Of course. And I think this one will have something to do with general relativity."

"Oh, right. Obviously."

"You're pretty good at that, aren't you?"

"Yeah, but I'm better when I haven't just had a life-changing orgasm."

She laughed. "Right."

 


End file.
